KUALA LUMPUR: Senior lawyer Datuk Roger Tan (pic) is making a return to the Bar Council after an eight-year hiatus.

The legal fraternity welcomed the news, saying his service was very much needed.

“We have no doubt that Tan would again serve the Malaysian Bar indefatigably and take it to greater heights,” said senior lawyers Datuk Sulaiman Abdullah, Edmund Bon Tai Soon and Amer Hamzah Arshad, who proposed Tan’s candidacy for the Bar Council for the 2018-19 term during the annual election on Sunday.

Asked why he did not continue after the 2008-2009 term, Tan said he left to focus on his legal practice and four children who were beginning their tertiary education then.

In 2008, Tan was appointed by the International Bar Association with Justice Roslyn Atkinson of the Supreme Court of Queensland as part of an international team to examine the state of the judiciary and rule of law in Fiji.

However, the Fijian government issued a ban order before they arrived at the Nadi International Airport.

Tan is also a member of the Advocates and Solicitors’ Discip­linary Board, appointed by the Chief Judge of Malaya upon consultation with the Bar Council.